On a number of occasions, people who don’t run wonder what I think about when I go out and run for hours on end or even just the hour of the weekday run because of the monotony, among other things. After these comments I try to think of a suitable answer but find it difficult to explain an ever-running inner dialogue. I usually just say something to the effect of a verbal shrug. They don’t want a real reason anway.

Lately, however, I have contemplated it more, especially after a spur of the moment run on a day I had planned to rest. I mentioned this run in the recap of the training that week and alluded as to how that run helped my thinking process. I realized during that run that something about the forward motion helped move my thoughts forward. Something I had wrestled with mentally until my brain felt stuffed, unknotted itself as I ran in a mere two and a half miles time. Even though the actual epiphany did not encourage me at all, the relief from connecting the pieces put a smile on my face. On that run, I stopped at the turn around to text Mom and let her know what I had figured out. I could not wait to share.

That particular fairly recent epiphany helped me reflect on the process my brain goes through while I run both when I run solo and when I run with Mom. Often when I run with Mom, we use that time to talk through our days, or lately, particularly thorny issues. I value this time because God has blessed me with an amazingly wise mother. She helps take my tangled web of thoughts and sort them into straight lines or simple patterns. Even the act of talking to her helps me strip down my arguments to the basics because she does not spend nearly the same about of time immersed in topics like education or immigration policy. I have to strip away assumptions based on prior knowledge which often acts like scar tissue preventing the free flow of ideas.

Not every run falls into this category. I think that running would become a burden rather than a relief if I did not have runs where I just stepped out my door and started running having no idea when I finished what thoughts filled my brain at mile 4. A quick perusal of my race recaps provides proof of that. I know though that I never completely zone out on those runs. My brain constantly hums along. It’s as if the run gives my thoughts an outlet so they don’t clog up my brain as they might otherwise.

Occasionally, I also get post ideas as I run. Many of them vanish into the ether. Some of them lurk in a corner of my brain until I stumble upon them later. The pages of my composition notebook where I hand write all my first drafts frequently have a word or phrase scrawled across the top unlined section, sometimes more than once if the current entry sticks around beyond that page. I don’t think of all my ideas while out on a run but I do think of quite a few.

So, it’s quite a good thing that I got into running ten years ago. All those thoughts needed and outlet and my writing needed some organization.